There is an on-going need for methods and apparatuses that allow computers and other like devices to detect human faces within digital images. This task, which is known as face detection, typically requires the detecting device/logic to examine/process thousands if not millions of candidate windows within a digital image in an effort to locate portion(s) of the image that probably contain a human face. Conventional techniques call for the image data within the candidate windows to be manipulated and examined in various different positions and/or scales. All of this processing can lead to slow detection speeds.
It would be useful, therefore, to provide improved methods, apparatuses and/or systems that increase the detection speed. One way to do this is to quickly reduce the number of candidate windows that need to be processed and examined. The resulting speedup of face detection would be beneficial in a variety of computer and machine-based applications.